Carol Apple

About this Christian Poet:I am an active Mom of two teenage boys, married 19 years, who works as a technical writer and graphic artist in Suffolk Virginia. I have been writing essays and poetry for years and am finally beginning to send a few of them out into the world.

Reuben

My whole life
after that turgid day
that we destroyed our father
I thirsted for a color
beyond our spectrum.

Shaking from nightmares
of boys in holes
and bloody coats
I woke longing for something
I never knew.

Lost in a haze of blood and envy
we knew not fully the wrong
we had done until the years
grew pain in every limb and we saw
the anguish testified
in our father's face.

Does our father yet live?
He lives for Benjamin, the substitute.
And now the thing I longed for can be—
the water I sought has a name.
Forgiveness.
Give me a sip brother
and I can live again.